NetworkTables + RoboRealm + Labview = ???

[sraque]

For Ultimate Ascent, we used a single board computer running Win 7 and RoboRealm on the robot to do our image processing. We also used network tables to transfer the data over ethernet to the cRIO.

I have seen people mention mounting a laptop on the robot for this purpose, but that approach uses more mass and volume than necessary. SBCs can be found that are about the size of the D-Link. When the match ended, the cRIO software sent a remote shutdown request via hardware relay to the power switch on the SBC so that it gracefully shutdown after each match. Having the image processor on-board enabled closed-loop control from the image processing. Communications lag between the robot and the driver station prevents close-loop control.

In Aerial Assist, we did the image processing on the driver station since it was a simple command back to the robot based on the hot goal status.